John Watson's Worst Nightmare
by Stilwater Rundeepo
Summary: Watson walks into Holmes' apartment to a shocking sight...Holmes with his wife, Mary! But Holmes has even more surprises in store for his old friend, all in the name of science of course. One-shot. No slash. Rated T to be safe.


It always seemed to rain when Watson found himself in a delightfully good mood.

Despite the fact that he had stepped almost shin-deep in a browned puddle while taking a stride along the Thames, and his hands were beginning to crack from being so frozen, not to mention a mob of mud ball-throwing street urchin boys had managed to muddy the edge of his scarf during his lopsided escape, he was doing quite well. In fact, there was a skip in his step, however awkward it corresponded with his cane. With one hand he dragged the stick along, and in the other, he held a bouquet of burgundy-red roses for his darling wife, Mary.

Watson's plan was to take a detour down Baker Street to pay his partner, Sherlock Holmes, a short visit—more than not for the sake of checking up on the detective's physical and psychological health, rather than a conversation with an old friend over tea and crumpets. Holmes had a way of sneaking chemicals into whatever food was lying around the apartment that sucked Watson's appetite out of him like water from a desert floor.

At any rate, yes, Watson was practically Holmes' mother in the way he frequently checked up on him in this way. And did he mind? As Holmes' doctor, not at all. As an old friend? More than Holmes himself could ever figure out, and that was a statement in of itself.

By the time Two-two-one-B had appeared around the corner, and Watson was hobbling up the steps to the door, he realized he was whistling a delightful tune about the glories of London. He was still in a delightfully good mood. If he was lucky, Holmes would not dampen his good mood with far more ease than the rain.

But it was a Wednesday. And Wednesday's are Watson's most unlucky days.

He rattled on the door, waited a few seconds, and finally decided to walk right in. Readjusting his hat and rushing his whiskers, Watson ascended the steps to Holmes' apartment. His conditioned ears listened intently for any of the uncanny noises that frequently greeted him when he was on these very steps. Yet, strangely enough, Holmes' apartment was as quiet as a mouse.

"Now _that _is unusual," Watson muttered to himself. Then he hollered out, "It's me, old boy! Your doct-ahh...!"

He heard something like a muffled gasp, but that was all.

Watson arrived at the top step, turned the knob, and opened the door.

The rose bouquet fell out of his hand, as his eyes turned round and wide like two snow-white saucers. He couldn't believe his eyes.

There was his friend Holmes, naked from the waist up, wrapping his hands around the bare back of a woman whose blonde curls and arched back were all too recognizable to Watson. It was Mary. His wife!

_How could...how could she..._ Watson rubbed his eyes and looked again at the ghastly sight. Mary was giggling as she dug her fingernails into Holmes' back, his legs massaging hers with his lips tickling her ear lobe. It couldn't be. It couldn't be true! Watson leaned against the doorway, wishing he could look away and run back down the steps, but he couldn't move. He thought he was going to be sick for sure. Then Mary paused and looked up at him.

"Oh...it's you, darling," she said simply.

When Watson saw that Mary's lipstick was smeared all over Holmes' face and neck, he knew for certain he was going to do something messy.

"Well, if it isn't the old doctor. Long time no see, as the Yankees say?" Holmes chuckled, molding his arms into Mary's curved form.

"Holmes...! Mary?! How...!"

"Now, now, John," Mary giggled.

"But—but _why_?!" Watson demanded, wishing he could scream, but his throat was choked. He felt something begin to drip down his legs.

"He's a witness, Mary," said Holmes, turning back to Mary just long enough to kiss her, "and the scene of the crime cannot have its witnesses, now can it?"

"Of course not, you handsome detective."

"Now, then, if you will excuse me for a moment..." Holmes turned, jumped off the bed and onto his feet, and yanked a large object out from under the covers. Watson gasped. It was a butcher knife.

"Now, wait a minute..._Holmes_..."

But Holmes just laughed and pulled out another object—a double-barreled shotgun! Watson saw the blade coming closer and closer. Mary was giggling like a smitten schoolgirl, burying her face in the covers that were starting to run—red, with blood...? Holmes' eyes went completely black, like a shark's, as he wielded the two weapons high above his head poised to strike down. Watson tried to turn around and run out the door, but he found it had been locked behind him. He screamed the first name that came to mind.

"_Gladstone_, help!"

But Gladstone was perched on the ceiling, like a bat. On second glance, Watson realized that Gladstone was a bat after all, or at least he had bat wings. Gladstone too was grinning ear-to-ear, two fangs sticking out of his giant lower lip, just before swooping down and stealing Watson's hat, revealing his bare head upon which Holmes was about to strike, as Mary continued giggling.

Suddenly, as if in a earthquake, the floor gave out underneath Watson like a pulled-out rug, and he began to fall helplessly to the black hellish caverns below, screaming at the top of his lungs...

_"Watson?"_

Watson's eyes shot open. He looked up. Then he jumped back.

"Watson, what is it?"

It was Holmes—dressed in full, staring down at him less than two inches from Watson's face.

"What is going on?" Watson demanded. He rolled off his back and sat up on the floor. Suddenly he remembered what had just happened—the half-naked maniacal Holmes, his giggling wife, her lipstick all over Holmes'—

_Oh, thank the Lord, _he thought with a flooding sense of relief. He cradled his head in his hands, realizing his coat was off and there was a funny taste in his mouth as if he had been sleeping for hours.

"Why, Watson? Whatever is the matter?" Holmes whispered, prior to having his face pushed away by Watson's thumb against his cheek.

"Personal space, if you please," Watson growled. He shut his eyes, trying to erase the terrible image of his best friend and his own wife lying on top of each other. "It was only a dream."

"_What _was only a dream? You had a terrible dream, Watson?"

"Yes. Yes, I..." Watson pinched the bridge of his nose. "Oh, Holmes, it was _awful_."

"Really? You would use the word 'awful' in the place of 'scurrilous', or 'cadaverous', 'tasteless', or otherwise a rather repulsive and loathsome sign from the supernatural realm...Watson?"

"Just a bad dream, Holmes. Now leave me alone. I want to forget it." Watson slowly got to his feet, glancing around the apartment until he found a nearby teapot and a cup of tea. Out of habit, he sniffed the tea before pouring himself a cup. But before he could take a sip, Holmes' open hand slammed down on his, and tea went flying onto the carpet.

"Now, you mustn't forget it, Watson!" Holmes cried. "First, you must tell me all about this..._awful _dream of yours."

"Tell _you_? About my dream?" Still pinching the bridge of his nose, Watson collapsed in a chair. Holmes, meanwhile, yanked out a notepad and a pencil and knelt down in front of the doctor like a boy about to polish his boots. "Holmes, what _are _you doing...?"

"Quick, Watson, before you miss one simple detail! Tell me everything you can remember about your awful dream. Commence, immediately. What made it so awful? Was there anything involving an object such as a ring, or a blade, or a bed sheet? Did it end with you—"

"Holmes, why are you so interested in a simple dream I had?"

Something seemed to ignite in Holmes' eyes. Watson hated it when that happened.

"Because, _doctor_, it was no simple dream. Do you recall that pipe I offered you to smoke when you stopped by to visit one hour and eleventeen minutes ago? It was difficult to ward off your keen sense of smell. But I slipped the result of my newest experiment into your pipe. My intention is that the subject will be able to discover and comprehend their deepest fears through the induced and subsequent dreams. If I succeeded, then I have found a medical potion that scientists like that of Freud and Feuerbach shall use to delve deep into their subjects' minds. It's a scientific breakthrough, I tell you. Who needs a psychoanalyst when you can simply take a sniff of—"

"Are you saying you _drugged _me, Holmes...?"

"Naturally, Gladstone would have been my first choice, but that would've gotten me nowhere. He is a dog, after all. He doesn't talk. I would have provided you with fair warning beforehand, however that would have compromised—"

"Holmes, how dare you..." Watson, too shaken to argue, curled up in the chair with his half-empty cup of tea. He still couldn't get that terrible picture out of his head.

"Now, tell me about the dream, all you can remember." Holmes readied his pencil and notepad eagerly.

"It was the worst dream I've had in _years_...I mean, well—I walked in and found you, and Mary, my wife—making—you were _together_..."

"Details, Watson, details! What does the word 'together' imply, exactly? Explain in the most raw and brutal term possible."

Watson boiled, his upper lip curling. So it was Holmes who gave him that horrible nightmare? He should have known.

"You were...h-having..." he coughed loudly, "having intercourse..."

"Really? Most intriguing." Holmes jotted something down, then his head snapped back up. "Now, whom was on top of whom?"

"_What_?"

"In your dream I was having sexual intercourse with your wife, correct? Was I on top of her, or was she on top of—"

"Holmes, I'm not going to tell you! That's repulsive! Besides, it was _my _dream!"

"Yes, but _I _was the one who invented the chemical that gave you the dream in the first place, so in the strictest sense it was _not _your dream. Now tell me. Who else was in the dream?"

"Gladstone, the dog."

"Does this imply that the three of us—I, Mary, and the dog—were experiencing a threesome?"

"Oh, please, Holmes, _really_!"

"But I must know every single detail, as this dream was the result of all of your greatest fears combined. Otherwise, my experiment will have been all to no avail. And, you will have been responsible for the hindrance of the next advancement in the field of medical science," Holmes declared, waving his pencil like a wand.

"An experiment on _me _without my consent!" Watson corrected, gnashing his teeth and spilling more tea.

"Let's move on. What time of day was it? What were you wearing? Oh, and Watson, was it raining? Weather is a most key essential to dissecting these sorts of dreams."

Watson let out a long, tired sigh.

"_Yes_, it was raining...Holmes, I do _not _want to talk about it..."

"Was it raining Mother Nature's water, or that of either I or Mary's—"

"Real rain, Holmes! Good God, what has gotten into you? Now let me go!"

"Just, let me finish, writing this down, and you may skitter away to your uncouth marital fantasies. Now, what role did Gladstone play in the dream? And did your left foot step into anything before you walked into my apartment? Details, Watson, if you please!"

Watson rolled back his eyes and sunk his back into the chair, wishing Holmes would go away and leave him be. The more questions Holmes asked, the more he remembered the dream, and the more he wanted to forget it.

But it was a Wednesday, after all. And Wednesday's are Watson's most unlucky days.

A thought occurred to Watson and he jolted upright all at once.

"Holmes?" he piped up. "Where did you put the bouquet of roses I bought for Mary?"

"_Those_? Oh. I used them as a supplementary ingredient in my powdered reversed-laxative compound—"

"Oh, Holmes, how dare you!"


End file.
